4 Stars. As with almost any anthology, there were stories that I loved and some that just didn't do anything for me. I was a little afraid that it would start to get depressing (star-crossed love just doesn't sound happy, now does it?) but there was a good balance of happy and sad endings. Favorite story: "Hurt Me" by [...]
I just couldn't write this review without getting some big spoilers off my chest. I kept it safe for everyone though. If you're not worried about spoilers and it looks like something is missing, just highlight and you'll see what I wrote. You'll get it. Just when I thought this series couldn't get any more twisty-turny, (spoiler) I started to like Jamie Lannister. A lot. How the hell is Martin doing this? No, seriously. Not only is he keeping up with 50 pages' worth of characters without bogging the story down in names, but he has twisted this story in every conceivable direction without turning it back on itself. I keep thinking that I have made my peace with losing characters that I love, but I am enraged every time another gets knocked off. I cheer when a bad guy gets it. I want to reach inside the pages and bitch-slap an awful lot of people. They are asking for it. Trust me. Watching the series on HBO made me brave enough to pick up this one. Much as I love these, they are monsters. I need some courage to tackle them. Watching the series is giving me a better idea of how good Martin actually is. I am a slow series reader, so I do lose a lot of details between books. Seeing how things from the first book tie directly into the third book, about--oh, 3000 pages later, is amazing. It's also making it hard for me to keep my mouth shut as I watch with my sister and husband. They would never forgive me if I let a spoiler go, but it is so. freaking. hard. Like that spoiler up there. I want to tell them all about it and hash out exactly what happened where. I…
Picking up where the first book left off, the Seven Kingdoms are in chaos. There are now three claimants to the Iron Throne and the North has declared something of a war of independence on the rest of the country. This book has almost everything. Treachery, loyalty, conspiracies, conspiracies within conspiracies, turncoats, power plays, twists, turns, you name it. The only thing I find to be missing is a love story. I don't need much, but in a book this epic in scope, it feels like somebody should be in love with somebody else and want to talk about it. It's a small thing though, and I'm more than willing to overlook it since Martin does everything else so well. I found it a little daunting when I realized that there are 28 pages of characters at the end of the book. That's right. Twenty-eight. But I found the main characters very easy to keep track of. It probably helps that I'm not someone who needs to know exactly how each minor character fits into which family. I found the cast of characters to be very manageable, and I don't think I have a huge tolerance for books with too many characters. Speaking of characters, I loved watching how some of the characters grow throughout the book. As I recall, there wasn't a whole lot of character growth in the first book, but I guess the author was mostly worried about laying a good foundation for his story. So watching the sometimes surprising ways that some of my favorites developed was intriguing. And I was left with my heart aching for the path one character is forced to follow. I think causing that kind of emotional investment in your characters is one of the marks of a great author. Another…
This book, the first in a series, is too big to easily sum up the plot and do it justice. Basically, Robert Baratheon led a revolt against the old king of the Seven Kingdoms when he was a young man. Now that he's middle-aged, he's found that he was more interested in fighting for the throne than he is in sitting on it. He calls on his oldest friend, Ned Stark, to take the office of the Hand of the King, and effectively leaves him to run the kingdom while Robert hunts, womanizes, drinks and has a good time. But people have noticed that Robert isn't truly a king, and his throne is vulnerable to vast conspiracies. That synopsis does this no justice. There are so many different plots woven into this epic, it's incredible. The characters are wonderfully depicted and complicated. The story is told through the eyes of many different characters. From Ned's daughter, Sansa, an 11-year-old girl who is too romantic and prim and proper for her own good, to the cynical dwarf, Tyrion, who is the king's brother-in-law, each character has something to say and a unique voice to say it in. But it never gets confusing. Just in case, though, there's a "family tree" of characters at the end to help keep everyone straight, but I never had to use it. For an 800+ page book, I really ripped through this. I picked it up to read just a little one night and I was over 60 pages into it before I realized it. For such a huge book, it really was hard to put down. I got sucked into each character's story and lost track of the time. And this happened every time I picked the book up. It's hard to maintain that kind…